rolling-stones-letters

Who Deserves the Credit for Knocking this Sticky Fingers Pressing Out of the Park?

Hot Stamper Pressing of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,   

All time world champ.  A cut above unbelievable!  All the magic sans the shrillness so common in the multitudinous copies I’ve heard.  Breathtaking finesse and musicianship exploding in holographic dynamics that are clean and tonally real and penetrating.  

What a copy.  Pure gold.  Thank you Tom.  You knocked it out of the park.

Phil

Dear Phil,

Fantastic news. We loved it too.

A small correction, if I may:

Some mastering engineer knocked it out of the park. All we did was find the ball, grab it and run with it.

And if you want to find the killer pressing that can sail over the back wall with ease, possibly landing in the bed of a pickup truck never to be seen again, there is only one way we know of to do it: by turning over lots of rocks.

Some of the rocks we turned over for our first big shootout many years ago can be seen in the picture below.

It was taken in the early- to mid-2000s. By that time I had been buying up Sticky Fingers in local record stores for more than twenty years. I didn’t have much to show for my efforts, however, as the records were just too noisy, scratched-up, groove-distorted and just plain bad sounding to qualify for a shootout.

It wasn’t until 2007, with the discovery of the Prelude Enzyme Record Cleaning System and the Odyssey record cleaning machine (similar to Keith Monks’ design from the 70s that I used to use) that we were finally able to get Sticky Fingers to sound good enough and play quietly enough to identify the Hot Stamper pressings lurking in the pile of copies you see below.

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Letter of the Week – “I have NEVER had such a big smile on my face while listening to this epic album.”

More of the Music of The Rolling Stones

Our new customer Michel wrote to tell us how much he likes his Super Hot Stamper pressing of Sticky Fingers.

Hi Tom,

Fifty two years ago when I was eleven I got given a little Sony cassette player and 4 cassettes. One of them was Sticky Fingers. Needless to say, I have listened to that album for five decades, as I am 63 now. I’ve listened to countless different pressings in that time span.

I have NEVER ever had such a big smile on my face, eyes shut, in absolute bliss, totally engrossed in how incredibly full and lush the sounds were, while listening to this epic album.

‘I Got The Blues‘ blew my brain it sounded so good.

That luscious warmth in perfect balance with the vocals and all the other instruments besides bass, guitar, drums.

The highs all there…no shrillness whatsoever…everything clear and precise…simultaneously within that warmth. It is a TRUE pleasure to listen to this lp…unmatched by endless other copies.

I feel so lucky to be having this experience. It is that good. I feel privileged to be in the presence of such sound. It is very healing!!

My parents were both classical musicians (violin and piano) and I got played classical music during mealtime as a baby…don’t know if that developed my ears and subsequent pleasure from beautiful sounds or not, but it sure feels like it.

This SHS is really something special. Many Many thanks to you and your crew, as you all have brought much joy into my life.

Michel

Michel,

Thanks for your enthusiatic letter!

Bringing joy into our customers’ lives is something we are fortunate to be able to do.

All the way back in 2007, after playing the Hoffman-Gray remastered Blue, we asked ourselves what was the point of these nothingburger records.

Do they bring anyone even a fraction of the joy the real thing could?

The answer was obvious even back then.

As you know firsthand, the attempts by other labels to remaster Sticky Fingers have been quite a bit less successful than Blue (which, truth be told, isn’t half-bad).

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Letter of the Week – “It is a raucous chaos of undigestible noise.”

More of the Music of The Rolling Stones

Reviews and Commentaries for Some Girls

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased a while back:

  Hey Tom, 

I have recently purchased from you great copies of Aftermath, Beggars Banquet and Sticky Fingers, so I think is have some idea of how Stones records should sound when they are great. This copy of SOME GIRLS is virtually unlistenable. It is harsh, hard-sound, unmusical. It is a raucous chaos of undigestible noise. I don’t know if you personally play graded it, but someone in your group seriously missed the boat. I am returning it. 

Dear Sir,

I played that Triple Plus Shootout Winning copy myself. I like to think I know the album well, and I had never heard it sound so good in my life. It was really quite shocking to hear it sound open and free from distortion, literally for the first time. Obviously we were hearing it differently.

But it is a very different recording from the three Stones albums you mention.

This entry from Wikipedia may be helpful for those trying to better understand the sound that Chris Kimsey and the Stones wanted this time around.

Writing and Recording Some Girls

Especially this part:

Kimsey’s direct method of recording, together with the entrance of the then state-of-the-art Mesa/Boogie Mark I amps instead of the Ampeg SVT line of amps, yielded a bright, direct and aggressive guitar sound.

The record is supposed to sound the way our copy sounded — when played back on our system anyway. I can’t know what it sounds like on yours. (Which is why it’s never a problem to get a refund any time you have an issue with one of our records.)

How do we know what Some Girls is supposed to sound like? The most obvious answer is that we’ve played them by the score, probably a hundred copies or more by now. We’ve learned to recognize what the best copies do well that the average ones do not do as well. (more…)

Letter of the Week – “Love in Vain sounds as if they are playing live in my living room!”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available No

One of our good customers had this to say about a Hot Stamper Rolling Stones title he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,   

I was blown away by Let It Bleed. Despite the only noise on the record being on Love in Vain… that particular song sounds as if they are playing live in my living room!

The richness of the guitars is unbelievable.

And the bass on Live With Me, wow…. Great pressing! (more…)